IRIAF | News and Discussions

[OldTwilight]

So how are the chances Iran getting the Su-30?

zero ....

 

[Stryker1982]

And it will take even longer the longer they wait to go towards that direction!

A proper decision should have been taken over a decade ago after the flight tests of the Saegheh were completed as to what Airframe & Engine you'll need in your fleet 20 years from now!
You may be able to build a flying prototype in a matter of few years but a production model will take much longer & building the facilities for industrial size production even longer!

But in my opinion they made a major mistake and a complete miscalculation in their cost vs benefits annalists & they completely miscalculated cost upon purchase with overall cost of operations with a complete disregard of the Military, economic & technological advances of the country when building the most advanced Aircraft & Engine within their capability as oppose to something that's cheep upon purchase!

Right then and there while Oil prices were at $100 per barrel they should have made a decision in Titanium production & It's not like they didn't have Titanium mines in the country they have an ample supply and whether or not some like to admit or not Titanium is a major hurdle for Iran that's why Iran is sanctioned from buying & producing it!

Iran has the potential to produce various rare earth & strategic alloys! It took Iran about 6 months of R&D to start producing Magnesium which is 30% lighter than aluminum over 50% lighter than titanium, and 75% lighter than steel. Yet for many applications it's stronger per unit volume than all three of those structural metals. Although by it's self it is too expensive to be used on fighter but it has the potential of being mixed with other alloys to create other alloy composite used in fighter Airframes.
And that to me means anyone who is trying to sell Iranian Magnesium should be shot!

Our leaders made the mistake of completely disregarding airforce, and its funding is garbage. Fully focused on missiles as a substitute. We didn't need huge production of fighters but we should've been building the base, the resources, the plants to process materials. You are right, we should have already had this capability years ago, and their are only slight indications that we are going in this direction but by the time we see an indigenouns 4 gen squadron from Iran would take 10+ years. Maybe with some imports it'll be less but not fully indigenous. We've totally fucked it. Missiles cannot be a substitute for airforce. Only in the initial high intensity phase is where you'd lob 100's of missiles to soften air defences and attack vital assets in enemy country. The airforce then moves in just like how the Americans did in Iraq. We have one step of that nearly complete, we just need more range and accuracy on the zolfiqars. Maybe 30 years ago i'd say the airforce doesn't win wars but I beleive that in modern ages, the airfoce absolutely has the ability to stop an entire armoured bridage in its tracks,or give that final troops the punch they need to move forward. This isn't WW2 anymore, countries can smack a 2 ton bomb in a trench. Did you guys see the highway of death the americans did to Iraqi armourded vehicles. That right there wins wars. Only because of how precise airforces have become.

 

[Blue In Green]

zero ....

Russia isn't an ally to Iran. More like that one friend that helps you sometimes.

 

[Navigator]

and that make the airplane not suitable , by the way if i'm not wrong sanction for airplanes last 2 more years after sanction for other weapons.

No, there only ballistic missiles transfers and techs with prolonged terms. Combat aircrafts, tanks etc restrictions until the date five years after the JCPOA Adoption Day (18 October 2015).
http://www.un.org/en/sc/2231/restrictions-arms.shtml

 

[Draco.IMF]

iran does produce titanium:

http://www.iran-daily.com/News/168841.html

 

[VEVAK]

@VEVAK

First you are badly confused about the J90.

Second just ask yourself that sense it makes to produce 24, say a Su-30 equivalent each year? Do you know the fleet size of the Americans? You want to reach their level in 100 years or have a kill ratio 1:10 in favor of your fighter? This is lost.

Third why should we not just concentrate on fighting the Americans or a equivalent force? It's a monumental task to achieve a near peer status against the U.S and Iran is going in that direction very effectively.
I know one or two things about military, but if you ask anyone if Iran will ever stand any chance against the U.S military behemoth, the answer will be NEVER. No chance, don't even try it, just accept it.

Iran is doing the impossible and needs to invest its resources very wisely.


So much on that.

The J90 has NOTHING to do with the Tolue-4, a mini turbojet. The J-90 is a small turbofan with two fan stages, 3 LP and 6 HP (the Tolue has 3 stages in total...). If they do it right it will be a very effective design in thrust, cost and SFC.
Do you really think the Kowsar would have such large nacelles if they wanted to fit a Tolue-4 that fits in a C-802?

No. The J90 is Irans first own jet engine design, a turbofan and in class of the Al-222. It is very promising for the F-313 application. They only question is whether they will be able to get it working. It would be a huge accomplishment which no more than about 5 countries in the world are capable of. However because its so huge I don't believe it will happen anytime soon.


Then you say the Qaher was wrongly designed because of the engine number change. What if the IRIAF got interested in that AIO project but would not accept a single engine fighter? Now that we know the IRIAF is involved in the project, almost certainly twin engine was one of their requirements.
I already wrote that in the Qaher thread: Due to the low level operation regime I foresee for the Qaher, two small non-afterburning turbofans are sufficient to mach 0,9 sea level operation. Under those conditions a chasing F-16 with AAMs wont do mach 1,1-1,2 on afterburner. Terrain masking and low level hit and run tactics are what I foresee for the F-313. Its large fuel reserves and non-afterburning engines are the key to the range performance required for Iran and hit and run tactics. Only such a asymmetric approach on manned airpower makes sense against U.S level of manned airpower.

At the end we need to get the job done and figure out how. How fighting against such a professional superior force and not loose? 24 Su-30 copies a year for 60m $ an airframe or 100 "asymmetric" F-313 for 6-10m $ an airframe? If you want to accomplish the impossible, the answer is clear.

A conventional airforce adds some flexibility. 60 Su-35 (WVR+BVR), 20 Mig-29 (WVR+BVR) 40 F-14AM (BVR+ emergency WVR) and 80 F-4 (mach 2 dash BVR intercept and escape) as IADS emergency firefighters and UCAV bomber escort into a degraded enemy airspace are welcome. If resources are available why not. But a larger fleet size would bring it outside the good to have flexibility sphere and be counter productive for the serious missile/UAV based weapon systems.

Did you watch the Video I posted? The J-90 is not the Tolue-4 but it is based on it!

And if Iran wants to truly build a jet engine of it's own then they need to start with building larger & heavier engines and work their way down and the government accepts to pay the correct price for them? A company like MAPNA working alongside IAIO could potentially develop a Turbofan worth taking into production! Clearly MAPNA is far better equipped in terms of Tools and Equipment than any Aviation company in Iran
But will the MOD ever accept to pay $2 Million USD per engine to MAPNA for an Iranian Engine with the same characteristic as an RD-33 that's the Million dollar question!

The notion that ANY Air Force in their right mind would choose 100 Q-313 over 24 Su-30's is beyond absurd! And it doesn't matter if it's against the U.S. or Afghanistan!

And yes 24 Su-30 or J-20 size Aircrafts is more than enough for the next decade until you have a fleet of 240 and then you can bring down production to 12 per year of a more advanced more expensive version! A country the size of Iran needs a minimum of 12 fighters(The most advanced within the countries capabilities )+ 2 support Aircrafts added to it's fleet on a yearly bases and I don't care if those fighter go the IRGC ASF or IRIAF as long as the country has them! And they should ALL be twin engine, twin seat that can potentially be upgraded so the rear pilot can command and control UAV's & UCAV's! And that's how you catchup to a superior fleet!

And the Aircrafts need to be large enough & powerful enough that a decade from now you can equip one out of every 4 with lasers to be used as countermeasures against incoming SAM's & Air-Air missiles

And stealth alone by it's self is not enough that's why the U.S. retired the F-117 and Iran's ability to capture the RQ-170 is further prof of that fact!
You need speed! You need maneuverability to counter incoming missiles! You need situational awareness, INS, Avionics, HOTAS, Helmet mounted heads up display, Glass cockpit! You need Jamming & Anti Jamming capabilities! Countermeasures! You need secure communication & datalink! You need an IRST! You need a good Thrust to weight ratio and a fighter that relies on it's engine for lift rather than it's wings or worse yet it's fuselage! You need a fly by wire system for various reason to tell you when your reaching the Aircrafts structural limits to an advanced autopilot! You need BVR capability, PGM capability and target accusation and targeting using various sensor! You need a good Weapons package & a good size payload! and you need an aircraft that's fully protected from EMP & could withstand a close hit and live to tell about it! You need a platform that has the room and potential of being upgraded with various future systems as technology advances....
And the conclusion is putting all that equipment on a small, low thrust, low payload, low speed, low maneuvering Airframe because you wanna save a few bucks upon purchase is just NOT smart!

 

[drmeson]

None of them has any serious missile arsenal. Some have a few for nukes.

Allow me to inform you that you are argument is wrong. India has a tested IRBM-ICBM and their space program is way ahead of Iran. Pakistan has solid fueled MIRV-MRBMs along with deployed long ranged LACM, SLCM. Israel has ICBM, LACM capability. And these states are not just equipped with "few" for nukes, they may have hundreds of missiles tipped with fission/fusion warheads, yielding from megaton to tactical battlefield ones.

What do you think, why is having BMs = "political villain"???
Because its the single deadliest and in any terms most effective weapon system that is known to mankind.
Iran has more political will and is smarter then the countries you listed.
Russians and Americans want no country on this planet to have a missile arsenal like Iran.

Indians develop a conventional BM force? = no love anymore from Russia and the U.S
If you look close enough, the others try to somehow develop BMs, but only with restricted payloads and ranges.
I'm quite sure that Israelis threaten Americans to develop a conventional BM arsenal, but they persuade them with cheap F-35. Americans do everything to stop any country to take Iran as a role model, no need for a Israeli role model. Israel will soon reach the threshold at which their small country and airbases in it, have no chance to win a conventional conflict against Iran, they either go for BMs or have their BM based nukes as deterrence.

Why are you assuming that all these countries like Israel, India, KSA, Pakistan, Turkey etc are run by stupid defense strategists that they have strong nuclear tipped missile programs yet they keep developing their AF's as well. Your whole argument of Russia/USA not wanting anyone to have a missile force is dusted by the fact that Russia has sold more weaponry to China and India than anyone yet India and China both have missile forces (Chinese one is on another level). Israel bought the whole Apartheid RSA program in 80s to cover for its missile program, yet they kept receiving weaponry from USA, Pakistan gets western weaponry despite a nuclear triad armed military with an arsenal of BM/CM. It is not because these countries are brainless idiots, it is because their diplomatic fronts work and ours so far has failed on global level.

And kindly do tell which country has reduced payloads and ranges because of US/Russian pressure ?.

As for the Zolfaghar, you as a soft target was not there, close to the impact, to feel the mach 3 caused shockwave.
Nor did they use the Zolfaghar in numbers required for killing hardened targets. Either it was a display on single round performance to the world, or they really wanted to kill soft targets in those buildings.

6 x Zolfaghar strikes with a CEP of 30-50 m hardly delivered around 4.2-4.5 tons of conventional warhead over an area of 50 m. A single sortie by 5 x MRCA's (4+ generation) can deliver ... guess what ... 25+ tons of same warhead with CEP of 5 m. And also at variety of targets. Again I repeat, same platforms can serve as air guards that's why they are called MRCA.

Hopefully and it looks very well like it, Iran will not play to the rules set by U.S and Russians --> use conventional airpower. Just never play to the game rules set by the enemy. No one can catch up to Russiand and American aeronautics... Its lost.

Russians are sneaky, want to export their expensive toys/fighters to backward countries. But themselves know that their strategic bomber delivered sub- and supersonic CM arsenal (they agreed with the US not to use ground launched CMs, MRBMs, IRBMs) and their nuclear and non-nuclear BM force is what really breaks the neck of a peer enemy state.

PS: none of the neighboring countries is what Iran prepares against, those are magnitudes weaker than what Iran faces.

You are again assuming that Iran's only enemy is USA so either we prepare against USA or we just do not against anyone else. I would go on and say that Iran will fight a future war against a KSA led Arab Alliance rather than USA. Can we match even their air power ? no. Today they do not have BM/CM's, what if they start procuring them from China, what if cash loving Pakistan starts selling them BM/CMs or even set up a TOT factory inside KSA ... you have this imagination that your enemies are some idiot orcs who can not think. Shahi Iran was an arms importer too, how many years did it take us to become a local arms developing country, why do you think same can not happen in enemy countries across the PG. They have the cash and world is willing to help them unlike us.

This cold war era mentality of Russians and USA controlling the world etc is sickening, no one is no ones proxy or poodle anymore. Iranian skies are unsafe no other argument is valid here, if we are faced with a regional air invasion in future (some 500+ Rafale, EF-2000, F-35, F-15SE, F-16 blk 60, Mig-35), do not expect few Almaz batteries to take them all out, fire BM's towards their bases and they will start doing the same to our infrastructure, against which by the way we have no defense as of yet. IRIAF needs to be equipped from scratch with at-least 14-16 squadrons of 4+ MRCAs to defend Iran in such a future. Buy TOT assembly lines from Russia or China, Su-30SM or J-20C, doesn't matter but it needs to happen now.

Missiles are equally important too but they are not the only deterrent. IRIN is spending millions and millions of dollars on making new corvettes and frigates. In future there will be some 10-12 such vessels in PG ... with no air cover. In case of war these vessels will be taken out easily. Are we ready to send our thousands of sailors to such slaughter. IRIN itself needs at least 4 squadrons to provide air-cover and also launch strikes on enemy vessels. We do not want to repeat another praying mentis.

..............................................


By the way this talk of Qaher 313 is absurd since Aircraft is not just a single machine that we can make or we can't. I would ask the very basic question here. Where would it high performance turbofan come from ? What about an AESA radar, avionics, armaments ... BVR, WVR, Radar, TFR, HMD, RWR, MAWS, IRST, FLIR, ECM, ECCM, IFF ... Do we make all of it inside Iran ? off-course we do not. This project is nothing but an aeronautical academic utopia without all of these equipment procurement issues addressed. It is small, less powered even if it flies. I am not against it, let the engineers and scientists gain experience but mark my words this will never enter production without MASSIVE foreign support or get ready for another Saeghe abomination.

 

[VEVAK]

Our leaders made the mistake of completely disregarding airforce, and its funding is garbage. Fully focused on missiles as a substitute. We didn't need huge production of fighters but we should've been building the base, the resources, the plants to process materials. You are right, we should have already had this capability years ago, and their are only slight indications that we are going in this direction but by the time we see an indigenouns 4 gen squadron from Iran would take 10+ years. Maybe with some imports it'll be less but not fully indigenous. We've totally fucked it. Missiles cannot be a substitute for airforce. Only in the initial high intensity phase is where you'd lob 100's of missiles to soften air defences and attack vital assets in enemy country. The airforce then moves in just like how the Americans did in Iraq. We have one step of that nearly complete, we just need more range and accuracy on the zolfiqars. Maybe 30 years ago i'd say the airforce doesn't win wars but I beleive that in modern ages, the airfoce absolutely has the ability to stop an entire armoured bridage in its tracks,or give that final troops the punch they need to move forward. This isn't WW2 anymore, countries can smack a 2 ton bomb in a trench. Did you guys see the highway of death the americans did to Iraqi armourded vehicles. That right there wins wars. Only because of how precise airforces have become.

And the fact that they haven't even attempted to build a larger supersonic fighter after the Saegheh to me shows how misguided Iranian Air force commanders truly are and how miss managed Iran's Air Force is!

And I can't really blame the government for this because if the Air Force had developed a prototype worth producing then one could blame the MOD & the government for refusing to fund that program! But for now to me it looks like the Air Force had a problem and instead of trying to solve it as the IRGC did with it's missiles, UAV's,... and as Iran's Navy did with it's ships, subs, hovercraft, facilities,.... As Iran's Air Defense force did with developing various Air Defense systems....
To me it looks like IRIAF did nothing in the past decade to go after a larger more capable Air Frame & an engine to power them!

And I don't see why an Oil rich country like Iran should be worried about the cost of fueling it's jet but if they were worried about fueling them they should have started R&D in Natural Gas based Jet Fuel & Jet Engines!
That's something Iran has ample supply of!

 

[Stryker1982]

And the fact that they haven't even attempted to build a larger supersonic fighter after the Saegheh to me shows how misguided Iranian Air force commanders truly are and how miss managed Iran's Air Force is!

And I can't really blame the government for this because if the Air Force had developed a prototype worth producing then one could blame the MOD & the government for refusing to fund that program! But for now to me it looks like the Air Force had a problem and instead of trying to solve it as the IRGC did with it's missiles, UAV's,... and as Iran's Navy did with it's ships, subs, hovercraft, facilities,.... As Iran's Air Defense force did with developing various Air Defense systems....
To me it looks like IRIAF did nothing in the past decade to go after a larger more capable Air Frame & an engine to power them!

And I don't see why an Oil rich country like Iran should be worried about the cost of fueling it's jet but if they were worried about fueling them they should have started R&D in Natural Gas based Jet Fuel & Jet Engines!
That's something Iran has ample supply of!

God the more I think about it the more angry i get. The Airforce has literally nothing to show for itself, as you mentioned every other branch has built its own systems. Even the big projects like impressively made fateh submarines are moving forward. The only real achievement is the kowsar training jet. Which isn't really much if we look at the last 20 years. Once the best branch of the Iranian military as well. Such a shame

I'm not sure about Saegheh. Isn't it just a overhauled & alittle upgraded F-5, including the use of their parts?. We didn't actually build it ourselves i think. The Kowsar is the first actually Iranian built system, and we need to continue work from there. I can't be sure though, I don't know much about Saegheh.


Shafagh was something really realistic and has great potential. If we can get those RD-33 finished, we'd actually have a chance at building the foundations for a modern airforce in my opinion.

 

[Blue In Green]

God the more I think about it the more angry i get. The Airforce has literally nothing to show for itself, as you mentioned every other branch has built its own systems. Even the big projects like impressively made fateh submarines are moving forward. The only real achievement is the kowsar training jet. Which isn't really much if we look at the last 20 years. Once the best branch of the Iranian military as well. Such a shame

I'm not sure about Saegheh. Isn't it just a overhauled & alittle upgraded F-5, including the use of their parts?. We didn't actually build it ourselves i think. The Kowsar is the first actually Iranian built system, and we need to continue work from there. I can't be sure though, I don't know much about Saegheh.


Shafagh was something really realistic and has great potential. If we can get those RD-33 finished, we'd actually have a chance at building the foundations for a modern airforce in my opinion.

Money is a really important aspect to an effective air force. Given the sheer size of Iran and it's old and inadequate air force the amount of money that needs to be injected into the defense budget to compensate for these deficiencies is staggering.

The figure of Iran's defense budget would have to jump from circa 10 billion to around 25-35 billion. This would logically include a heavy focus on the air force and the rebuilding of its structure plus aquiring new jets of different types. If Iran wants to build its own jets then we're talking about around 20 years or 10 years of a strong concerted national effort to produce an effective 4+ generation fighter, multirole, or interceptor.

Of course Iran will have to invest a lot of money to get any of these such ideas off the ground. Simple as that.

 

[Dinky]

can someone explain why there is a zero chance on Iran getting russian jets like Su-30?

 

[mohsen]

can someone explain why there is a zero chance on Iran getting russian jets like Su-30?

Because under this shitty deal, arms sanctions will remain for another 4 years, and with zero doubt U.S will scrap the deal before that due date.

 

[OldTwilight]

Russia isn't an ally to Iran. More like that one friend that helps you sometimes.

they are not friend , they just don't want to confront USA alone and use Iran as their useless pawn against west ...

can someone explain why there is a zero chance on Iran getting russian jets like Su-30?

because we have never good relationship with them in past 250 years ....

 

[SubWater]

hello dear mate @VEVAK
Where is your source about 6 generation fighters ????

also very interesting news I found
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...lateral-ties-with-us/articleshow/60129840.cms

part of news

WASHINGTON: The US decision to sell 22 Sea Guardian drones to India at an estimated cost of USD 2 billion​

that mean each drone cost: 2 billion $/ 22 = 90.9 million $
while each SU 30 cost around 40 million $


also this part is interesting

This summer, India received 10 advanced Heron drones from Israel for USD 400 million, making Israel a weapons supplier competitor to the United States.
​

unlike you guys I am not fan of huge investing on big manned fighter and that is b/c of future of wars

 

[Dinky]

Because under this shitty deal, arms sanctions will remain for another 4 years, and with zero doubt U.S will scrap the deal before that due date.

Wow I thought the deal was just about Iran lowering its enrichment in return of lifting sanctions, I didnt know it also included restrictions on its military, didnt Zarif say it will only be about the nuclear issue and nothing else.

Also then what the hell can Iran do, if Qaher will take a decade like some of you guys say in this thread and you cant buy Jets from Russia because they arent your friends and the shitty nuclear deal blocks it, then what option is left?